


Mirror, mirror on the wall (who's the most real of them all?)

by ErzaWritesThings



Category: Annihilation (2018), Annihilation - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, Follows the movie, I still don't know what the hell that thing was, Lena meets her own doppelgänger, Some blood but not much, The Humanoid (Annihilation) - Freeform, for once the main character doesn't die, see I can write stuff where the main survives, the humanoid thingy that the glowing thingy turns into, the phosphorus grenade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14025735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErzaWritesThings/pseuds/ErzaWritesThings
Summary: Dimly, a part of her recognized the fact that this thing had swallowed Ventress right up - crept inside her, took her over, consumed her and spat her back out as this nebulous light. But she was fascinated. So fascinated she didn’t even think of safety procedures, or staying at a distance until she was sure it was harmless - she approached it slowly, eyes fixed on the morphing, mutating light.Lena's thoughts and feelings when she meets her doppelgänger.





	Mirror, mirror on the wall (who's the most real of them all?)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here is my second Annihilation one-shot. It was done quicker than I'd expected, but I had inspiration, and now that it's done anyway I figured I might as well throw it on here and be done with it.
> 
> As always, enjoy and lemme know your thoughts!

It was a phenomenon quite unlike anything Lena had ever seen before.

Probably unlike anything that had ever been seen on Earth before at all, period.

She didn’t even know what it was. She could barely even describe it, to be honest.

It hung in the middle of the… room? den? chamber, at eye-height, seemingly floating in mid-air, or just suspended in nothingness, like one of those nebulous clouds the Hubble telescope occasionally photographed. The inside of it pulsed with light, a tube-like structure that pushed matter outwards and then sucked it back in around the outside, continuously renewing itself. The outside was mostly greyish in colour, but it was less grey-grey and more of an amalgamation of colour so blended together it came out as grey.

At first Lena thought it was utterly silent, but in the background there was a slow, pulsing, metallic buzzing, just on the edge of human hearing, that made her teeth ache and her eyes water.

Considering all that, Lena was still quite sure she could not adequately describe what this was. She wouldn’t even know where to start beyond what it looked like, and what it sounded like. It was so far beyond her frame or reference she was left floundering, searching for explanations and coming up with exactly nothing.

But she was fascinated.

So fascinated she didn’t even think of safety procedures, or staying at a distance until she was sure it was harmless - she approached it slowly, eyes fixed on the morphing, mutating light. She itched to get her hands on a bit of it and put it under a microscope. See if she could figure out what it was, or at least what it was made of.

Dimly, a part of her recognized the fact that this thing had swallowed Ventress right up - crept inside her, took her over, consumed her and spat her back out as this nebulous light. It was even, according to Ventress just before she’d been consumed, sentient.

Lena wondered how something without a tangible form could be sentient.

As far as she was aware, there was no carbon-based life that could achieve sentience without a physical body. Hell, the vast majority of carbon-based species couldn’t achieve true sentience even with a physical body.

Maybe, though… maybe whatever this was wasn’t carbon-based at all. It could be literally anything.

Lena couldn’t rightly assume that all life in the universe, assuming that life on Earth wasn’t the only life in the universe, was carbon-based. And who was to say that those non-carbon-based life-forms needed a tangible form to achieve sentience? It could be possible, somewhere in the vastness of the world. Humanity just hadn’t discovered it yet, like so many other things out there.

There was an itch at her nose, high up the bridge, next to her eye. Like something was trying to pull at that particular bit of her.

As she stared into the light, transfixed, she saw a few tiny drops of her blood be sucked away from her face and into the nebula. The metallic buzz increased in intensity as the light absorbed the blood. It disintegrated into it, and then, as if through a microscope, Lena could see cells develop - but they were flawed cells, she could see that easily, sick, perhaps, or just mutated by the light they were developing in. They weren’t like the cells Lena was used to seeing under the microscope at work - they were more like her own cells had looked when she’d found the Shimmer in her blood.

Perhaps not flawed, then - just different than what she was used to seeing.

They multiplied. One into two. Two into four. Four into eight, eight into sixteen, and so on. Slow, at first, then more and more rapidly until a solid mass began to form.

Something akin to apprehension began to churn in Lena’s gut.

She stumbled backwards, grasping for her rifle, watching warily as the mass took shape and became humanoid in shape. Behind it, the nebula grew and expanded like a black supernova - then, in a second, was gone. Dissipated into nothingness.

The humanoid stood in the middle of the chamber, motionless.

It was about the same height and build as Lena herself. It had a chitinous skin, a shiny iridescent green in colour, very much like the back of a beetle. There was no face. It had the vague ridges of a face, the brow, the jawline, the cheekbones and even a very faint impression of a nose - but no real defining traits, no eyes, no mouth, no particulars to classify it as an individual, nothing that even suggested Lena was looking at a real person.

Lena held her rifle a little tighter, the apprehension in her gut turning to a queasy kind of fear that made her feel faintly nauseous. Her hands trembled. Something like this should not exist on Earth. Like the Shimmer itself, it was unnatural to the very planet, an invasive species introduced to a region it had not originated from. And like any other region that had an invasive species introduced to it, Earth did not have the means to fight off this thing, and the Shimmer it had come from - left alone, it would consume all.

With that in mind, and somewhat overcome with the need to make the construct go away ( _unnatural!_ her mind screamed at her, _danger!_ ), Lena aimed her rifle and fired off half a dozen bullets.

They punched straight through the construct, tails of matter trailing behind them and floating behind the humanoid like ribbons. Faint light came from the holes in its torso. It didn’t even seem to notice it had been hurt.

Lena’s stomach turned cold.

The metallic buzz returned as the humanoid began to move. It took one step towards Lena, then a second.

She, quite like anyone else in her position would have done, threw her rifle aside (it was useless against the humanoid anyway), turned on her heel, and ran like the bats of hell were nipping at her heels. Heartbeat racing in her chest, breath stuck in her throat, palms slick with sweat, she scrambled back up the tunnel that had brought her into the chamber in the first place as fast as she could, her only thoughts on getting the hell out of the lighthouse and back towards the normal world as fast as her feet would carry her.

Unidentifiable humanoid entities were not in her job description. The military could deal with this thing.

She crawled out of the tunnel onto the ground floor of the lighthouse, scrambled to her feet, started to sprint towards the door - the humanoid was in front of her. Barely ten feet away, the tendrils of matter absorbed back into its body, the shining holes in its torso healed over as if they’d never been there in the first place.

It was staring straight at her.

Lena panted, mostly out of breath from the deep, irrational sense of terror churning in her gut, watching the humanoid warily. It stared back, shifting its stance a little so it was mirroring Lena’s own stance, legs a shoulder-width apart and arms hanging loosely at the sides. There was no aggression at all, despite the fact that Lena had shot it only a minute earlier, just a kind of curiosity that was possibly even more unsettling.

Lena took a careful step to the side.

The humanoid mirrored her movement almost at the same time she made it.

She took another sideways step to the other side; was mirrored again.

Mind racing, Lena tried to figure out what to do. If the humanoid mirrored her every movement, it would be a small miracle if she could get to the door and away without being waylaid or otherwise stopped. She needed something to take it out so she could flee unimpeded. Her eye fell on the camera on its tripod, still standing in the same spot as when it had been used to film her husband’s suicide, halfway between her and the doppelgänger. If she could get to it, she could use the tripod to knock the humanoid aside and escape.

She stepped forward; the humanoid stepped forward too. Two steps, three, until there were mere feet between her and it, the tripod within easy lunging distance.

Figuring she wouldn’t get a better shot at this, Lena lunged, grabbing the tripod, swinging it at the doppelgänger with all her might - and missed.

It ducked away, bringing up one arm, a fist smashed into the side of her face -

the world went black for a while.

* * *

 

She woke up to the sensation of blood trickling down her face and soaking into the sand that covered the ground floor of the lighthouse, leaving the side of her face sticky, wet and covered in bloody mud. Her temple stung something fierce, and when she opened her eyes, it took a second before they adjusted to the light.

Vaguely, she thought she might have a weak concussion or something.

She blinked and managed to make out her immediate surroundings. Iridescent green was less than a foot from her face. The doppelgänger laid in the sand beside her, mirroring her position exactly, moving the moment she did, even at the slightest twitch of her finger.

Lena pushed her upper body up, staring at the doppelgänger with apprehension, her head pounding with a dull pain that sharpened the nearer to her temple. She sat up and was motionless for a moment, continuing to stare at the humanoid. It stared back, its blank slate of a head not betraying anything.

It felt very much like a stand-off, each waiting for the other to move.

Lena took a moment or two to realize that the doppelgänger would not move until she did. Oddly, that did make her feel a little better. It meant that it wouldn’t attack her unless she moved to attack it first. She considered her options for a moment. The door out was maybe twenty feet behind her. If she ran as fast she could, she might get there and have enough time to open it and slip outside, and pull the door closed behind her.

She was banking on the assumption that the entity before her did not know how to operate a door.

For another moment, she sat motionless.

Then, in an instant, Lena threw herself backwards, scrambled to her feet, ran for the door. Something heavy smashed into her back just before she could open it, pressing her against the wood hard enough to squeeze the air out of her lungs. She gasped for air, groaning as her ribs creaked in protest, tried to push back as hard as she was capable of, to push the doppelgänger off her so she could breathe.

She failed.

It was far stronger than her and pushed her back against the door seemingly without even trying, pressing the breath of air she’d been able to take back out of her body. Lena groaned in a combination or pain and impending panic, her struggles slowly weakening as the lack of air began to take its toll on her body and ability to resist.

Then, as the world started to go blurry and dark for a second time that day, the weight at her back disappeared. Lena stumbled away from the door, the doppelgänger peeling away from her back, and hit the floor with a teeth-rattling thud that sent another spike of pain through her head. She breathed, desperately, gasping in each lungful of air with a profound sense of gratitude, not even caring about the particles of sand that entered her mouth with every gasp.

She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, just breathing, each aching signal of protest from her abused ribs reminding her that she hadn’t been choked to death.

When she found the strength to sit up, feeling new trickles of blood slide down her face to add to the ones already present, her body protesting against each movement, and then up to her feet, she once again found herself face-to-face with the doppelgänger. It stared at her, but now she could see the differences in how they moved. It didn’t waver on its feet like Lena did, didn’t pant and wasn’t out of breath, didn’t straighten up gingerly to relieve the strain on its ribs.

Somehow, it only made it more alien.

For several seconds, Lena just stared at it. It was strange, having a being mimic her so closely. Every movement she made, mirrored the second she made it. The facelessness of the entity only made it more creepy.

But she could use the way it mimicked her.

She could take advantage of it. She’d spotted an unused phosphorus grenade near her husband’s dead body. She could trick the humanoid into holding it when it went off. Bullets couldn’t kill it, but white-hot, unquenchable fire might.

Once she felt steady enough on her feet, she walked backwards towards the wall, watching as the doppelgänger followed her every move, somehow managing to stay at the exact same distance from her. Lena turned 180 degrees, crouched down, reached into her husband’s abandoned pack to take out the phosphorus grenade she’d spotted, straightened up again.

There was almost a sense of curiosity coming from the humanoid now, as it reached out with its hand to mirror Lena’s movement. It seemed to understand that Lena was holding an object, and appeared interested in seeing what she would do with it. Lena brought up her other hand as well and very carefully placed the grenade in the hands of the humanoid, folding its fingers around it so it wouldn’t drop to the floor. With her thumb, she pulled out the pin. She still had the striker lever pinned against the side of the grenade; until she let it go, it wouldn’t go off, and even then she had a full five seconds to make it to a safe distance.

After a second, she noticed that the iridescent green hide of the humanoid was starting to change where it was in contact with her own hands. Slowly, it took on the colour and texture of human skin, the cool rubberiness turning soft and warm as it crept up to its elbows.

Lena looked up at the doppelgänger’s face, watching in horrified fascination as that too changed, hair growing out of its scalp and into the exact same hairstyle as Lena’s, messy bun and all. Its face morphed and rearranged itself, blood starting to trickle down from the temple and hairline, until Lena was staring at a perfect copy of herself. Her own face stared back at her. It was empty, lifeless, in a sad, distant kind of way.

Lena had seen that expression before, in the mirror, a year ago when she’d believed her husband had been killed in action. That was the face of someone who had lost something vital and didn’t quite know what to do with themselves anymore. Or maybe the face of someone who’d never had anything and wasn’t sure what to do now that they existed to have something.

Something inside her stirred.

Compassion, maybe. Sympathy, at least. Because Lena knew what it felt like to feel like there was no purpose for her. She’d felt that when she’d left the army, before she’d decided to become an academic and started on achieving that goal, and again when she’d thought her husband had died, leaving her behind, alone and grieving and struggling to work out how she could move on.

The fear diminished a little. Staring into her own eyes, she couldn’t really find it in herself to be terrified anymore. There was some revulsion, maybe, and horror at the thought of something stealing her face and taking it for itself, but also curiosity and fascination and the want to get to know this doppelgänger of hers. At least the desire to know if it meant her any harm or not. Lena didn’t really think it did mean any harm. She’d been the first to attack, and so far, all the doppelgänger had done was defend itself when she’d tried to hit it with the tripod, and stop her from leaving the lighthouse. It hadn’t touched her beyond that.

Although it probably did lack proper control over its inhuman strength.

Lena’s ribs ached at the thought.

The phosphorus grenade was cold and dangerous under her fingertips. Lena wasn’t so sure she wanted to set it off anymore. But the pin was already gone. The doppelgänger wouldn’t know to keep the striker lever pinned down, and Lena wasn’t sure it would understand English if she spoke to it. Lena wasn’t sure she wanted to speak with it in the first place - the idea of this humanoid stealing not only her face but her voice as well was not nice.

She thought of her husband, whose burned out husk sat only a few feet away, the result of suicide by phosphorus grenade. He’d never come back out of the Shimmer. The person that had come out was a doppelgänger like the one Lena was staring at right now. It hadn’t tried to stop the real Kane from killing itself. All it’d done was film it - that, and it had promised the real Kane to find Lena. Which it had, showing up in her house without warning, walking and talking like her husband - if a confused, somewhat lifeless version of him.

Lena imagined her own doppelgänger walking out of this lighthouse, back into the normal world, taking Lena’s place in her life, fooling the people around it until Lena was utterly replaced, doomed to wither in the Shimmer or kill herself like Kane had killed himself.

Her resolve hardened.

She let go of the striker lever.

For half a second, she looked into the doppelgänger’s eyes. Then she ran, turning on her heel and sprinting towards the door of the lighthouse.

Behind her, there was a muffled ‘whump’ and a rush of intense heat from the phosphorus grenade going off.

She ripped the door open and sprinted through, back onto the beach. Now at a safe distance, Lena dared to look back. The door was slowly falling shut, but she could still see through it.

Back near the wall, barely having moved save for turning so they could look each other in the eye again, was the doppelgänger.

Its face - Lena’s face - lit bright white by the flaming ball of phosphor in its hands, pulled close to its chest, was stricken and confused, something very close to betrayal in the look in its eyes and the tilt of its lips. As if it didn’t quite understand why Lena was hurting it. It didn’t speak, didn’t yell or cry out, made not a single noise, but it didn’t have to. The expression on its face told the entire story.

A sharp twist of guilt lanced through Lena’s stomach, an emotion she hadn’t expected to feel, clogging up her throat and making her hands shake.

The doppelgänger continued to stare back, the phosphor casting its - her - face into sharp relief. Its eyes, though, its eyes were wide open and clear, meeting Lena’s gaze unwaveringly.

The door fell closed.

Lena stood staring at the wood for almost a minute. Then her legs started working again and she stumbled backwards, away from the lighthouse, satisfaction warring with horror and guilt in her stomach as she watched the lighthouse start to catch fire. The roots surrounding it went first, flames engulfing them in seconds, climbing up to the top of the tower until it was surrounded by fire so bright Lena had to look away because it hurt her eyes.

Still, there was no noise. The fire itself was eerily silent, no crackling or sparks coming off it. And still no screams from inside. Not a single cry, human or inhuman, came from the lighthouse. Just silence. Dead, dying silence.

Lena stumbled towards the beach, watching, struck dumb, as the crystalline trees dotting the direct surroundings of the lighthouse glowed a deep, fiery red before collapsing into piles of dust, still without making a single sound. The dust was so fine even the slight waves of warmth coming from the bonfire that was the lighthouse were enough to lift it up and blow it away.

When Lena looked up, she could see the soap bubble-like surface of the Shimmer slowly start to fade away until all she could see was clear blue sky. Around her was silence. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t quite find her voice.

Lena walked away. Away from her burning doppelgänger, away from the lighthouse, away from the Shimmer. Back to the normal world and her normal life and her husband who wasn’t her husband. Somehow, she felt empty at the thought. Like she’d just lost a part of herself she hadn’t even known she’d had in the first place. Like she was missing something unexpectedly vital.

Behind her eyelids, she could see her own face, lit a bright, flickering white by a handful of phosphor, bearing an expression of confused hurt and betrayal, eyes infinitely sad. It was a sight, she was sure, that would haunt her for decades to come.

Lena walked away. Away from everything that had happened since stepping into the Shimmer. It was over now. The Shimmer was gone. There was nothing left for her to fight.

The bloodstains on her cheeks were slowly washed away by her tears. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying.


End file.
